Republican Wave

Stu Rothenberg is trying to defend his April 2009 prediction that Republicans had "None. Zero. Zilch." chance of winning the House in 2010. Rothenberg's critics are lambasting him.

They are right to do so. I didn't start studying the House and elections until early 2010, but once I studied the numbers, I saw a Republican take-over as likely. After the 2008 election, Democrats controlled 69 Republican leaning districts. Republicans controlled 9 Democratic leaning districts. That can only happen in years where Democrats turn out in high numbers, Republicans turn out in low numbers, and independents favor Democrats. That occurred because the President was unpopular. Once you removed George Bush from the equation, there was no reason to think Republicans would turn out at least in average numbers and independents would vote fairly equally for both parties. Democrats would have no compelling reason to turn out in high numbers, as they weren't voting against Bush or to put Obama in office. Off year elections get 70%-75% of the electorate every time, with lower turn-out from core Democratic groups, young people and African-Americans.

Mr. Rothenberg could've looked at history and seen that a big gain by one party almost always results in a similar drop for that party in the next election. Democrats postponed this due to the Obama/Bush combination, but a party never holds such a high percentage of districts that lean to the other party for very long.

Democrats control 17 Republican leaning districts now, a drop of 52. Republicans control 18 Democratic leaning districts, a gain of 9. Republicans control 2 more even PVI districts for the total of 63. It's evened out. That should've been predictable. Republicans do control 45 districts that are even or have a slight GOP skew, while Democrats only control 22 such districts with a slight Democratic skew. That's why 242 seats is 10-15 more than what was likely to happen.

Once I analyzed the numbers I found that the most likely outcome was in the 50 seat Republican gain neighborhood, similar to Republican losses in 2006 and 2008.

Right now "normal" is around a 229-206 Republican edge. Democrats can take control of the House for a temporary period of time. I'd give them a 15% chance of doing so in 2012 if Obama wins re-election in 2012. If a Republican wins, I'd give the Democrats a 50-50 chance of taking the House in 2014. In either case the House would flip back in the next election.

The only way a Democratic majority would be "normal" is if the Democratic prediction of a big change in the electorate comes true. There's a little bit of evidence of this now, but at the current pace that'll take 10-20 years. If it happens.